KAREN LAND

Mushing, Running, and the Great Outdoors!

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
Columns

Goober Plucker

Print PDF

 

 

This summer I was excited to grow a small garden at my new home in Montana. But as things often happen, life whipped me around and sent me off on a totally different path.

 

I spent my summer in Indiana with my family, trying to do all I can to help my mom through cancer surgery and treatments. There is no place I’d rather be right now.

 

“Might as well just grow that garden while I’m here in the hot and humid farm belt,” I thought to myself as I filled my shopping cart with seed packets, tomato baskets, and plants.


( 0 Votes )
Read more...
 

Going Dental

Print PDF

 

“What did you do for fun this summer?” a friend recently asked me.

 

“Well... I’ve been going to the dentist,” I replied. “And going to hear live bluegrass, and trail running...”

 

“Seriously... the dentist... fun?”

 

Labeling the dentist as a recreational activity is a stretch, I know.

 

The painful fact that the price-tag for my decade of oral neglect equaled the purchase of a drift boat or a mountain bike or a good horse forced me to kid myself into believing that I’d much rather spend one afternoon a week at the dentist than tooling around the Martinsdale Reservoir in a new kayak.

 


( 0 Votes )
Read more...
 

Crinoids

Print PDF

 

 

The small wooden treasure chest stored in my childhood closet holds a collection of fossils. Whenever I’mdscf2065home, I pull the heavy box from the shelf, dumping the contents across my bedspread to find my favorites.

 

My first few years out of high school, I was crazy about crinoids. I spent my days off of jobs at the local veterinary hospital and hardware store traipsing the shallow streams of southern Indiana with my dog, searching for the columns of round “buttons.”

 

I know very little about fossils. But when I stumbled across my first crinoid while on a hike, I was drawn to their “perfectness.” The stems of crinoids have a dependable shape; I trained my eye to find the fossilized discs interlocked tightly together like a stack of coins.

 

When you have no idea what to do with your life and all else fails, I discovered that crawling creekbeds on your hands and knees searching for a fossilized sea animal well over 250 million years old can give you a purpose - and hope.

 


( 0 Votes )
Read more...
 

Illness Tests Limits of Human Endurance

Print PDF

I am a “dabbler” in endurance sports. But not until 3 months ago when my mother was diagnosedmommejuly302010 with

Uterine Carcinosarcoma, did I really begin to understand the true meaning of endurance.

 

When I was a little girl, Mom and I often watched all of the big marathons - Boston, New York City, Olympic - on television. From the starting line to the finish, we marveled at the runners, especially the women, who could cover such distances with amazing speed and focus and desire. Track and Field sprints didn’t interest us - it was the people who go FAR who captivated and excited us. “How can they do that?” we’d say to each other, inspired by such endurance.

 


( 0 Votes )
Read more...
 

Sweet Adeline

Print PDF

 

Inside my journal, an old, overexposed, black and white photograph of five beautiful dogs, all lounging in thedscf1706 grass and looking up at the camera, acts as a bookmark. Every time I look at the picture, I’m so thankful that my longtime girlfriends and I decided to pause our hike that day for the quick family photo.

 

In the snapshot, Kirby, my Catahoula-mutt; Kara, Shannon’s German Shepard; Cami and Pero, Shelly’s two Italian Spinone’s; and Alex, Brenda’s Corgi all lay and stay, waiting for the “free dog” cue. That was over 15 years ago, a long dog’s life; all five have since passed on. We still speak of them like they’ll come running out of the woods at any moment.

 

When I study this dark photo, I don’t just see the sparkling brown eyes and goofy expressions and wagging tails of the dogs we adored.

 

The picture reminds me of everything: the cool little house along the river where Shelly raised a family and our dogs once explored, the veterinary hospital where we all worked. I think of boyfriends we’d rather forget - Steve and Rob and Lester and... you get my drift.

 


( 0 Votes )
Read more...
 
  • «
  •  Start 
  •  Prev 
  •  1 
  •  2 
  •  3 
  •  4 
  •  5 
  •  6 
  •  7 
  •  8 
  •  9 
  •  10 
  •  Next 
  •  End 
  • »


Page 1 of 31